Free Republic

The remnant of the Axis of Evil delights in torturing our President . Not just with words -- but with carefully timed "3 a.m." nuclear detonations and launches of inter-continental missiles capable of delivering WMDs. The North Koreans did so on Memorial Day, as well as in April as their riposte to Obama's Apology Trip to Europe. Tehran launched its own provocation last week. Listen to the North Koreans Listen to the official North Korean news agency: "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea successfully conduced one or more underground nuclear tests on May 25 as part of the measures to...

Prior to North Korea's launch yesterday of a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, President Barack Obama declared that such an action would be "provocative." This public statement was an attempt to reinforce the administration's private efforts to urge the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) not to fire the missile.

....the national intelligence agency of a certain country that they believe North Korea has deployed nuclear warheads at two underground facilities for Rodong missiles," Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told The Daily Telegraph from Seoul. "We estimate that North Korea has as many as 320 Rodong missiles, which can be launched from mobile transporters anywhere in the country...

New imagery of the Musudan-ri Missile Test Site taken on 29 March 2009, released by DigitalGlobe shows what clearly appears to be a three-stage launch vehicle on the launch pad. Based on imagery alone, it cannot be determined whether this is a Taepo-dong ICBM or a space launch vehicle carrying the Kwangmyeongseong-2 (Lodestar) satellite payload. News reporting from DoD officials have indicated that North Korea has been in the process of loading the first and second stages on the launch pad. This commercial satellite imagery obtained from DigitalGlobe, clearly confirms recent NBC News reporting from DoD officials that North Korea...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday she was traveling to Asia to reassure allies of the U.S. commitment to them and was hopeful North Korean saber rattling would not destabilize the region. North Korea has said recently that it was terminating all agreements with South Korea and that the peninsula was on the brink of war, statements that are not unusual from Pyongyang but that Clinton said were unacceptable to its neighbors. Speaking ahead of her February 15-22 trip to Tokyo, Jakarta, Seoul and Beijing, her first trip abroad as secretary of state, Clinton...

TOKYO — North Korea took a step on Thursday toward reintegration into the world community and rapprochement with the United States by submitting for outside inspection a long-delayed declaration of its nuclear program. The 60-page declaration from North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished nations, was expected to describe in previously undisclosed detail its capabilities in nuclear power and nuclear weapons — meeting a major demand of the United States and other countries that consider the North a dangerous source of instability. “This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea,” said President Bush, announcing the...

WASHINGTON - Members of Congress will be told this week about intelligence linking North Korea to Syria's alleged nuclear program, congressional officials said Tuesday. The Senate and House intelligence committees were scheduled to be briefed on Thursday. North Korea has been suspected of helping Syria with a secret nuclear program, but both countries deny it. Pyongyang says it has never spread its nuclear expertise beyond its borders. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials will tell the committees North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-fueled reactor. Israeli warplanes bombed a site in Syria on Sept. 6...

Regime collapse in Pyongyang January 21, 2008 By Daniel L. Davis - On Nov. 7, Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited his South Korean counterpart Kim Jang-soo to underscore the solidarity between the United States and the Republic of Korea with regard to the oft-intransigent North Korea. Sending an unmistakable message to Pyongyang — and Asia in general — about how seriously America views the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Gates was accompanied by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the admiral commanding all American forces in the Pacific, and the four-star general commanding all troops in...

Clock ticking for Kim's Korea 24 January 2008 Kim Jong-Il's regime could collapse within six months, bringing chaos to North Korea, observers and intelligence sources in Asia have told Jane's. A joint United States report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the US Institute for Peace has also revealed that China has "contingency plans" in the event of North Korea's implosion. The report, entitled 'Keeping an Eye on an Unruly Neighbor', said that China was prepared to "take the initiative" and had a military strategy for securing North Korea's "loose nukes" should Kim Jong-Il's rule fail.

Solons Suspect Coverup In North Korea Scandal BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun January 25, 2008 UNITED NATIONS — Republican lawmakers yesterday expressed suspicions that as part of the Bush administration's attempts at diplomacy with North Korea, the State Department may have tried to cover up some Senate findings about the misuse of U.N. development funds by the communist regime of Kim Jong Il. A Senate investigation, which detailed the North Korean government's manipulations of the U.N. Development Program and the use of its facilities as a backdoor channel for moving funds around the globe, also led...

Israel planned 1991 strike on NKorea-Syria ship: report Wed Jan 9, 2:47 AM ET Israeli agents prepared to strike a ship suspected of smuggling missiles from North Korea to Syria in 1991 but cancelled it at the 11th hour under US pressure, a Japanese newspaper reported Wednesday. Undercover agents of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency secretly attached a guidance system for an airstrike on a cargo vessel believed to be carrying 23 short-range Scud missiles to Syria, the Yomiuri Shimbun said. The Yomiuri, reporting from Jerusalem, said it spoke to one of the agents involved in the operation, whose name was...

Mysteries still surround Israel’s air strike against Syria. Where was the attack, what was struck and how did Israel’s non-stealthy warplanes fly undetected through the Russian-made air defense radars in Syria? There also are clues that while the U.S. and Israel are struggling in the broader information war with Islamic fundamentalists, Tel Aviv’s air attack against a “construction site” in northern Syria may mean the two countries are beginning to win some cyberwar battles. U.S. officials say that close examination of the few details of the mission offers a glimpse of what’s new in the world of sophisticated electronic sleight-of-hand....

Freedom: As thousands of monks marched on Rangoon last week, a velvet revolution seemed near. But barbarism destroyed the road to democracy. Burma's rulers sent a message that tyranny pays. It must stop. Burma is often characterized as a pariah state in the Western media, with its reclusive regime holding few friends or allies. In reality, that's fiction. Burma remains a fine upstanding member of the United Nations while a real Asian democracy, Taiwan, is shut out. Burma is also a full member of the region's Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Burma has China as a patron, doing $2 billion...

<p>On Sept. 6, something important happened in northern Syria. Problem is, no one knows exactly what. Except for those few who were involved, and they're not saying.</p> <p>We do know that Israel carried out an airstrike. How then do we know it was important? Because in Israel, where leaking is an art form, even the best-informed don't have a clue. They tell me they have never seen a better-kept secret. Which suggests that whatever happened near Dayr az Zawr was no accidental intrusion into Syrian airspace, no dry run for an attack on Iran, no strike on some conventional target such as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base or a weapons shipment on its way to Hezbollah in Lebanon.</p>

The U.S. military and intelligence community have been tracking several shipments of material they believe have left North Korea and are destined for Syria or may have already landed there, a Pentagon official confirmed.

Why was the U.N. helping Pyongyang obtain militarily useful computers and GPS systems? Of all the evidence turned up by the U.S. concerning irregularities in the United Nations Development Program's operations in North Korea, some of the most disturbing concerns the transfer of dual-use technology. As reported last month, the U.S. has uncovered documents showing the UNDP procured and delivered to North Korea in May 2006 technology that could be used for military purposes: global positioning system (GPS) equipment, a portable high-end spectrometer and a large quantity of high-specification computer hardware. According to packing lists and confirmation receipts, the items...

The United Nations' Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal is now six months old, so it's a good time to assess progress, if that's the right word. The evidence of misdeeds at the U.N. Development Program in North Korea continues to mount, but there's still no "urgent" and "external" inquiry, as ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January. Now the U.S. has uncovered evidence that in addition to transferring millions of dollars in cash that may have gone to help prop up Kim's grotesque regime, the UNDP also transferred dual-use technology. It did so without bothering to secure a U.S....

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are Sgt. Donald C. Trent, of Crab Orchard, W. Va.; Cpl. Robert K. Imrie, of Randolph, Mass.; and Cpl. Samuel Wirrick of Lancaster, Pa.; all U.S. Army. Imrie will be buried Monday at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.; and Trent and Wirrick will be buried at Arlington in October. Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of...

"Realism" Is Ugly in North Korea By David Frum Posted: Monday, July 2, 2007 ARTICLES National Post (Canada) Publication Date: June 30, 2007 Resident Fellow David Frum The BBC interviewer was solicitous. "Mr. Froom," he began. (British interviewers almost always pronounce my name with a long vowel, just as they invariably pronounce Paul Wolfowitz's name, "Vulfovitz." I suppose they must be trying to encourage us to take more pride in our Eastern European roots. Or something.) "Mr. Froom: Isn't this newest North Korea deal a great victory for realism over the more ideological approach of the 'axis of evil'?" I...

When does President Bush wake up and smell the debacle cooking at his own State Department under the name of a “denuclearization” deal with North Korea? Thanks to U.S. backflips linked to this February 13 agreement, North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il, while still clinging to his nukes, has now regained access to some $25 million in funds frozen until this week at Banco Delta Asia in Macau. There is plenty of reason to worry that along with the money, Kim has effectively secured from the U.S. a free pass for some of North Korea’s global crime and weapons rackets.